Reaganitis
Frank Rich (former NY Times theater critic who turned to sociopolitics a few years ago) is almost always worth reading. This weekend he’s recalling Reagan as so many of the current contestants strive to stand in his shadow.
I posted this comment in reaction at the Times website:
Reagan was the first Charlie McCarthy president of the postwar. Bush pere and Clinton resisted the notion. But baby Bush, twice installed by illegitimate elections, seems its well-rooted redux. “There is a cancer on the presidency …”
None of the current GOPhers fit the Grand Old clubhouse mold. But Romney, a rich genial knucklehead anxious to please people, would make, despite his faith, a fine Charlie McCarthy.
As for the Dems: Only four have successfully negotiated the South in the Electoral College since Truman’s squeaker in 1948, and of those the only non-southerner had a prominent Texan on the ticket as VP. I don’t yet see how Obama overcomes this problem.
And I fear that Hillary, if nominated, will be blown out of the water by a blue valentine from Vince Foster.
And, of course (as the Times magazine recently pointed out), much more of the country is using hackable voting machines this time than last.
Best guess today, then, is that Knucklehead Romney is the next man to sit in Washington’s chair.
Bush-Cheney’s repeated illegitimacy, their assault on the law, their prosecution of the most destructive foreign policy in our history …
Destruction seems the theme. All the result of nothing more organized than a 50-car pile up on the interstate? I doubt the presidency, when dust settles, will be found to have survived. The seat seems Charlie McCarthy’s in perpetuity.
And given that the Congress was bought and neutered a while back with TV ad money, this leaves the Pentagon and the secret police as the essence of what Washington is. Old republics don’t die, they just fade away.
Same old stuff …
Perhaps, on second thought, Ford was the first Charlie McCarthy prez of the postwar. If so, perhaps it’s okay to overlook him nevertheless, since he was never elected (even as VP) and did little but play golf while Rummy and Cheney kept shop.
Obama’s paen in Las Vegas this week to Reagan is less than shocking. His vision is for an entirely new businesslike coalition, whereas the visions of both Hillary and Edwards grasp the essence of the class war that the rich renewed in the US during the 80s, and argue for going back to a balance where the working class is not utterly at the mercy of the owner-operators. They are reactionaries. Obama is futuristic, or, otherworldly.
Re McCain it remains difficult to believe the GOP machine would give him the nomination. Perhaps in utter despair. In which case the prime thing one hopes he would push would be campaign finance reform, which has long been dear to his heart.
Yet as far as I’ve seen, he’s been perfectly silent about it on the trail. Trojan Horse?
